


fireflies for teeth

by Goose_Boy



Series: what the dark dragged in [2]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Black Sun Jaskier, Canon-Typical Violence, Feral Jaskier | Dandelion, Hurt/Comfort, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, M/M, Non-Human Jaskier | Dandelion, Protective Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:00:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25158892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goose_Boy/pseuds/Goose_Boy
Summary: Rattled on a crackle of laughter that distorted his words, his body swayed on his crumbling perch as he danced about. One blackened foot extended on a dizzying spin, soot dark fingers catching at an aged support beam to pull himself around with both feet in the air, he was nearly beautiful. He danced like he had on tables when Geralt had left him for too long and people had filled his cup too many times, when the ale had been foul but strong and Jaskier had laughed to the ceiling. He laughed to the stars now, threw himself around like he didn’t care if he fell, like he trusted the dock to catch him, the bulging eyes that watched him to keep audience.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: what the dark dragged in [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1729189
Comments: 11
Kudos: 137
Collections: Interesting Character and/or Interesting Relationship Development





	fireflies for teeth

**Author's Note:**

> Part two! After a lot of patient waiting and comments that I appreciated, enjoy!

Burnt sulfur fumes and a sun that didn’t seem to have risen, perpetual twilight that filtered through the ever present bog plume and noxious gases that coated his throat until he could taste them. They burned there, ate at his throat like they tried to eat at his eyes until they wanted to water. Until he blinked, shoulders rolling and his fists itching to scrub at his eyelids gone tacky with it. It was impossible to gauge how long he had walked without the rise and set of the sun, no visible motion above, but a subtle shift that had started hours ago. 

The man had called it a Devil, but Geralt knew better.

Something that they didn’t know the name of, a screecher was just a cockatrice and a wailing woman was some sort of Wraith. Some phenomenon out of reach that they weren’t brave enough to explore on their own, though their grandparents had seen an entire town burn through the night. They themselves had watched those very embers spiral back to life just a week ago, the swamp turning to flames with the simplest shift in the breeze. They couldn’t explain it, they weren’t foolhardy enough to try, but Geralt knew coin where he saw it. 

He knew a distraction where it waited and he would take anything over the festering ache in his chest. 

There was no music as he walked, there were no soft footsteps to accompany him and no insistent chatter to drown out the melancholic droll of his own thoughts. He’d done that to himself, he’d taken that simple blessing and turned it into a curse with his callous nature.    
Little bird that he couldn’t ever hope to keep, he’d let it flee instead, beaten it until it had flown away on bent wings. 

Time had taken the path back, swamp weed and bubbling mud that had done its best to swallow the footpath that had once been tread through the weeds. The thinnest trail of it remained, foot trodden like it had been walked recently, multiple boot prints that had trampled across the dirt so that he could still make out the shape of heels. The imprint of bare toes against the muck indicated that someone had wandered on bare feet from the North, intersected onto the path like they had risen from the cradle of the swamp. Rotten wooden planks scattered unreliably across the way where it would once have been crudely paved with them and often traveled before nature and chaos had claimed it once again. 

Children in Novigrad sang about dust to dust, but they would never really know how right they were. 

Clicking insects and the occasional splash of a fish in the murky waters, there should have been  _ others _ here. He shouldn’t have been the only thing that walked here, he shouldn’t have been the only thing along this path. Damp and dark water made for perfect homes for water hags, stagnant bogs ideal burrowing grounds for drowners where the mud was thick enough to blanket them; there should have been things here. Even the low, roiling fog that rolled in from the sea far beyond didn’t bring a single foglet with it, no wet feet in the muck or prowling figures just out of reach. 

There was only fire in the distance, the softest glow of breath catching on long sleeping coals until they started to flicker and glow. It threatened the rest of the bog with its dancing warmth, and Geralt wondered just what it would take for the waterlogged world to go up in flames. Too harsh of a breeze, a clack of metal against stone hard enough to set a spark, everything felt precarious here. 

His boots made quiet sounds on the wet boards, soft smacks as he walked steadily toward what remained of Porthcawl. The fog grew, swirled around his shins and licked at his knees with a seamist damp. There should have been more here. Ghouls at the very least, nekkers if he wanted to consider himself particularly unlucky but there was just his own walking, just his own breathing. What sort of madness drove all the creatures away?

There should have been a moon, he had walked long enough that the sun surely must have set. The swamp had grown steadily more dim, it must have been just his mutations that kept him from being blind, but there were no stars to be seen past the thick thatch of branches overhead. No moonbeams survived through the dense canopy, he wouldn’t have known which direction he traveled if this hadn’t been the only route. Nature had done its best to reclaim it, but this single path to the ruined remains of a village long forgotten was the only thing left to guide him. 

Brittle structures that had burned so long they had twisted into charcoal husks. The foul stench of drowners was present here, but none of them rose from the muck to join him. They sloshed within it instead, he could hear them where they moved, webbed hands smacking through the mud as they pulled themselves alongside the path where it rose above the swamp basin. Low tide, the drop down to the water bed was at least as tall as he but he couldn’t see them, couldn’t find them even though they’d found him. 

Even though they ushered him steadily into the glowing carcass of Porthcawl. 

His medallion stirred against his chest, a low vibration starting that grew with every step. It set like a drop of background noise against the creak of the wind between the trees, the warbling purr of a voice from the boneyard of a town that should have sunk into the swamp when it had the chance. The swollen, forgotten gaping wound of the Continent, this part of the world housed more monsters than it did men, and this town should have been empty. Fear in their eyes, in their scents so strong it had made his nose burn, this village had burned to the ground some fifty years ago, nothing should have walked here but the dead and the damned. 

Crackled like it had seen too much use, abused and worn rasping thin until it rattled through the reeds and the beams that still remained. A little wet, sticky with the dead old blood that had settled deep into the mud.

A bubble in the muck up ahead, the glow of breathing embers catching on bulbous eyes that watched him from the shallow swamp. At least two dozen drowners stared at him from the dark, almost entirely submerged but for their bulging eyes and the fin atop their heads. A few drowned dead mingled amongst them, silent and creeping where they crouched. None of them made a move toward him, none tried to scale the mud embankment where it became a stilted platform. 

The entire town had been built above the swamp waters and the creatures watched him like they didn’t care to lunge for him. 

Like something held them back, some sort of lead keeping them tethered in place that he didn’t understand  — frayed at the edges and overworn, he knew that voice. 

_ ‘Remember me I ask _

_ Remember me I sing _

_ Give me back my heart you wingless thing’ _

A noble child’s music box left on the windowsill in the rain and impossible to properly tune. It cracked and climbed and filtered through the burnt remains of the village that had once been. A symphony that he didn’t want to recognize, but he knew that voice even if the cadence was warped like he had never heard it. Like mountain craig and a bottle forgotten at a silent lakebed, brittle and near broken and bloodbond ephemeral.

It was with an audience of partially submerged creatures that Jaskier twirled along the top of a crumbling, ember lit wall. A sort of drunken sway to his motions as he danced on the tips of his toes, one leg kicked out on a turn and that curdling, mournful singing falling from his mouth. Geralt had never seen him like this, had never known him like this, not in all the years they had walked together. Disjointed and off kilter, a marionette on tangled strings but he didn’t once lose his balance, twisted about high above the boardwalk even as he warbled.

_ ‘Think of all the horrors that I _

_ Promised you I'd bring _

_ I promise you’ _

His voice echoed on the trees, the swamp bog and the ember bright flare, or maybe it echoed from inside his chest. Geralt couldn’t pick the difference but it didn’t matter, not with how his medallion trembled against his chest.

Not with how he knew those red trousers, scarlet fabric carefully fitted and dirtied beyond belief. 

The same trousers from the mountain, the same chemise slung wide at his shoulders where the neckline had torn. Bare feet made black from soot and filth, trousers stained up to his knees and his hands just as dirty and dark, face smudged with it. Jaskier as he had ever been able to recognize him but never like Geralt had thought to see him, disconnected as if enthralled. 

_ ‘They'll sing of every time _

_ You passed your fingers through my hair and called me child _

_ Witness me old man, I am The Wild’ _

Rattled on a crackle of laughter that distorted his words, his body swayed on his crumbling perch as he danced about. One blackened foot extended on a dizzying spin, soot dark fingers catching at an aged support beam to pull himself around with both feet in the air, he was nearly beautiful. He danced like he had on tables when Geralt had left him for too long and people had filled his cup too many times, when the ale had been foul but strong and Jaskier had laughed to the ceiling. He laughed to the stars now, threw himself around like he didn’t care if he fell, like he trusted the dock to catch him, the bulging eyes that watched him to keep audience. 

_ Crack _ , part of the wall shifting under his weight, his body tumbling down to the boardwalk with Geralt’s heart in his throat and Jaskier’s disjointed laughter ringing in his ears. 

Bloodied lips that pouted, bloodied tear treks that had dried upon his face where they cut through the dirt and grime, but his eyes were blue. His eyes were blue, cornflower bright and aglow from a fire lit within. Nothing like the man he had tossed aside on the mountain even if his trousers were the same, even if he knew that face and he knew those eyes, nothing was the same here. Nothing was right, fat spill of blood long dried down his bottom lip and chin until it had stained his chemise, Geralt could only pray it wasn’t his.

“Jaskier?”

Thick throat and slow to speak, hesitation had always tasted bitter, almost burnt. 

Splayed legs, one pulled up at the knee until he could hug it, dirty fingers digging deep into his pantleg, Jaskier watched him as if he were a child. Bright eyed and with a gaping mouth, a dark stained tongue lolled out long enough to sweep across the crusted blood. Like Geralt was some kind of marvel, a puzzle or a prize, something to be looked at but not touched. The Jaskier he knew had never done well with restraint, but this wasn’t his Jaskier, this wasn’t his friend. 

“You’ve got sunshine in your eyes.”

Honeyed words and they should have been the same, but some grave hag’s rattling clutch lived now in the bottom of his lungs. Bit at his words like they could cut at his tongue, dual toned speech that made Geralt’s skin crawl. As if too many teeth and too many tongues lived behind those lips, Jaskier grinned in a caricature wide split like his face had never taken before. Bent low over his knee until his trouser leg bunched, pulled up to his shin with flaking mud. 

He smelled like the fires of Belleteyn, woodsmoke and hot, honeyed fruit, swaying flowers and sparking spring waters. Jaskier smelled like the memories that Geralt had never let himself have, a scent he had always been able to find no matter the city or the crowd. Like a lullaby leading him home before he ever heard that voice, it used to be that he could find Jaskier anywhere by scent alone. 

Those flowers were on fire now, that fruit burnt and those waters gone ashen clogged. There was a deep, cloying film of molten sugar and magma that the younger man practically oozed where he sat. 

He smelled like the sun trying to burn itself out.

“That isn’t fair.” Broken rocks for teeth and blistering blue eyes, Jaskier swayed where he sat with a pout. A coquettish moue that he used to thrill in causing but it sat off center now, caught up in all the blood and the sunken press of his cheeks. “We don’t get any sun here.”

He smelled like Renfri and Deidre, and Geralt hated every sign he must have previously missed. 

The ozone tang of magic he’d never necessarily been able to place, the bubbling bursts of  _ rage _ that he had scented beneath the other man's natural perfume that made too much sense now. Jaskier had never been  _ just _ his bard, had never talked of his parentage or his age or himself without a lie. A farce if ever Geralt had seen one, known one, but somewhere along the way it couldn’t be considered a lie if Jaskier had so seamlessly convinced himself, too. 

Jaskier bloomed with the cursed magic of a sun gone dismal and dark without an ounce of recognition in his eyes. 

“Jaskier, plea — ”

A splattering sound, one of the watchful dropping beneath the muddied surface once more as the sodden earth moved to fill the space. Like it had never been there, one less visible thing to disturb them from the mass of bulging eyes and silent air that hung heavy on their shoulders. Never had a swamp been so silent, never had he felt this need to hold his breath. There were things wrong here that had sunken into the mud until everything reeked faintly of old, dead blood and rot, this part of the swamp so blood soaked that he could still hear whispers of a massacre decades past. 

Silent as he tumbled to his feet, graceful and underfed and spindling until Geralt would surely break him with a single touch. He’d never thought the other man delicate before, but there was a tarnished, sanguine stained waifishness to him now. Bloodied teeth and lips, over wide eyes where he swanned into Geralt’s personal space, pressed them chest to chest until Geralt could only smell the burn of him. An infection buried deep and left to fester and spread until it had seeped into Jaskier’s blood, how had he never noticed?

“Who’s Jaskier?”

Trembling innocence and an empty fog all twisted together, he could feel the other man’s mouth brush his when he spoke, could taste the blood that had sat there so long it had turned black when he breathed. Who was Jaskier, as if he didn’t know, billowing laughter and a too sharp tongue. Who was Jaskier, as if Geralt had ever done the right thing, biting commentary and a stained glass mind. Like the man didn’t know his own name, didn’t know himself, all of that fog kept within his eyes where it shouldn’t have been. Poured there and left until it had gone as stagnant as the swamp waters that surrounded them, the ocean fog that crawled in from the coast like it meant to blanket them. 

Crackling laughter like a broken melody and the man tried to twirl away, caught at the wrist until they snapped back together. Stained chemise against the biting leather of his armor but he could feel every heaving breath from too sharp ribs. Fingers speared through greasy chestnut locks to keep them close and their audience rose with a gurgle. Dirty dark hands pushed against his chest, stronger than he should have been but nothing was like he remembered even though it all made sense. 

"You're Jaskier."

A rattle and a hiss and a caterwauling from somewhere deep in those lungs that crashed into a single sound, Geralt flinched even if he didn’t let go. Held tight to Jaskier when the lithe man tried to force distance between them, his bare feet slipping on the boardwalk. 

“ _ No!” _

He couldn’t close his eyes, he couldn’t look away, he had turned his back once and raged into the wind and look what it had gotten him. Exhaustion and a man that didn’t recognize him, a friend that didn’t know him and a love that he had tried so hard to rip out of his own chest. So afraid for nothing, everything had gone wrong even without him being there and now he had to try to fix it all. How was he supposed to pick up the pieces if he didn’t trust Jaskier to stay if he let go?

Bulging eyes and blue tinged skin and their audience rose from the mud like they’d been summoned. Medallion fluttering wildly against his chest, Geralt nearly let go for his swords when a head popped. 

_ Pop, pop _ , sinew and bile yellow brain matter splattering against the swamp mud and the shallow water where it had started to slowly sweep in. Their heads went off with foul explosions that dropped their bodies to the swamp floor. Jaskier struggled against him all the while, beat at his chest with a promise of bruises as Geralt staggered, struggled to keep them upright. Violent squirming and fresh blood spilling from his nose as the numbers of monsters dwindled rapidly. Jaskier fought him like Geralt had seen him fight in any tavern brawl, against any bandit that pressed their blade too far and he swore. Grasped at Jaskier with hands that would bruise and a throbbing heart that just wanted it all to stop. 

“Jaskier, stop!”

A bare foot against his shin, the inside of his thigh, clawed fingers scrambled across his chest and he couldn’t tell if Jaskier meant to free himself or maim him. Maybe both if he could manage, like something feral lived under his skin, the sort of unhinged that Geralt had only ever witnessed in a fit of vengeful brutality. Geralt clutched at his waist for fear of breaking an arm, his own grip tight as Jaskier strained against him. The man had never fought against him like this, vicious and wild with a sort of single minded desperation. 

It felt like a cramped street in Blaviken, wide brown eyes and the red, red spill of blood. 

“We have no Jaskier here!” Shrill and echoing across bloated trees and ruined buildings, those embers flared to life until they threatened to become more. A screaming laced with chaos untamed and sunscorched burning, the trees bowed from their roots and the entire world trembled for a single moment. “We have no Jaskier! We have no Jaskier, we have no sun, Mother said, she — she — ”

Silence, as if the heaving inhale Jaskier pulled in took all of the sound with it until everything was deafeningly silent. Like a harsh drop on the back of a griffin, a change in height so rapid that the pressure built until his ears strained to pop. 

Jaskier’s eyes were impossibly wide, antumbra firelight a tight band around his pupils. 

His hands clutched tight at the straps that held Geralt’s swords against his back like he could tear them in two and the fog that had swept along the swamp floor burst into flames. 

Blistering heat that licked at the underside of the boardwalk and Geralt swore, heart in his throat even as he grasped at Jaskier. Crushed the other man against his chest and knocked their foreheads together until he could stare at wild, empty eyes. A source of power left horribly unchecked, how had he not known? It didn’t matter, not in that instant, not with how those clawing hands started to cling instead, broken sobbing tearing from an abused throat. The rolling fog was alive with a hungry fire, but he could only hold on. He had let Jaskier go once, he wouldn’t make that same mistake again. 

“We ha-have no Jaskier, we gave blessing, we-” Another crackling sob but he had started to hum, a wordless tune that Geralt knew all too well. Windswept hair and a scale patterned doublet, a question of the coast that had gone unanswered and a plunking tune that felt like heartache. The same one he’d started to sing on that mountain, his hesitancy with Yennefer and the bitter, sallow smell of something dying. “ _ I’m weak my love, and I’m wa _ -we gave blessing!”

_ Oh _ .

That smell had been the death of hope, he could smell it on his own skin now, realization for what he had put the both of them through and just how far he had made his friend fall. He had done this, he had ruined something beautiful and furious just like he had in Blaviken. But Jaskier wasn’t Renfri, and he clung to Geralt like there might still be a chance. 

Their foreheads together, eyes level even if it burned to look at him and Geralt spoke with a desperate pleading.

“I didn’t mean what I said. You never left me no matter how horrible I was, and I took that for granted. I thought you would still be there, I  _ wanted _ you to still be there. Even if I didn’t deserve it. You made me realize how much I hated being alone, but walking the Path was empty without you walking with me. I’m so sorry, my friend.” Hyperventilation, his heartbeat sounded like a hummingbird mid-flight but Jaskier didn’t blink. Gaping bloodied mouth and a full body tremble, but those were fresh blood tears building and boiling in his eyes that turned to steam before they could fall. “I’m so fucking sorry, Jaskier.”

The fire burned, ate at the boardwalk until the beams crackled and swayed and the headless creatures below were swallowed up. Kindling that it didn’t need, sweat slicked beneath his armor and Jaskier’s eyes were an impossible, chaos infused blue. He would willingly go up in flames if it meant he had a few more minutes to hold onto Jaskier, just a few more minutes to try and make him understand. All the fire would be worth even a hint of recognition, his guilt and his shame would mean something if only Jaskier knew him. 

His mouth was over ripened nectar, his tongue the burning of too hot fruit that promised to scald and scar, but Geralt kissed him anyway. Held him with a promise of bruises where Jaskier clung with a demanding ferocity, burnt blood and blistered honey almost blackened. 

The kind of kiss that would kill him if the fires didn’t char his bones first, but Jaskier stared at him like he knew him.

“ _ Geralt!” _

Said his name like a thousand benedictions that he didn’t deserve as the orange flames melded instead to a cloying billow of smoke. 

“It’s okay.”

It wasn’t, not really, and it wouldn’t be for some time yet. Not until he understood, not until he deserved whatever trust was offered. But he wanted it to be and he would get them there even if Jaskier set the entire Continent on fire. 

“I’m here.”

But he was, but there was nowhere else he would ever be.


End file.
